Christmas Message
Dear Parishioners,
I have vivid memories of bitter-cold winters growing up as a child in Poland. I would trudge through fluffy snow, crunchy under my feet, heading to the church for Midnight Mass. It was about a half-hour journey on foot from the village where my grandparents lived to the church in the small town of Tykocin. The dark and cold winter nights were in sharp contrast with the bright lights and warmth of the church filled with people singing Christmas carols. The next day, I would continue to feast on the delicious, freshly made pierogis stuffed with sauteed sauerkraut and wild mushrooms.
You probably have your own rich memories and stories that convey some of the wonder and awe of the Christmas season. Their enchanting beauty warms one’s heart. The Scripture readings on Christmas Day tells us of the greatest love story ever told. It continues to bring us comfort, peace and inspiration. God, the creator and sustainer of trillion of galaxies, each containing hundreds of billions of stars, chose to dwell among us. As an outpouring of divine love, the eternal word of God became a vulnerable child, born in a small town of Bethlehem on the peripheries of the Roman empire, a subject to the evolutionary travails of history. The child Jesus was no stranger to the precarious nature of human existence, to its joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of people of every age. In the midst of the ordinary, everyday chores done by Mary and Joseph caring for the child Jesus, unbeknownst to them at the time, God was becoming one of us in Jesus Christ, and one with all of God’s creation.
The divine mystery of Incarnation that we celebrate at Christmas is not just about the events that took place nearly 2,000 years ago in Bethlehem. It is also about you and me and everyone else who has been moved by God’s love at the heart of the universe becoming tangible and personal. Our God, Creator and Sustainer of all there is, comes to the peripheries of human life and desires to dwell there. In 2013, three days before the Conclave elected Cardinal Bergoglio the Church’s next Pope, he said the following: “The Church is called out of herself and to go to the peripheries, not only geographically, but also the existential peripheries: the mystery of sin, of pain, of injustice, of ignorance and indifference to religion, of intellectual currents, and of all misery...” God’s love story that we celebrate in Christmas brings us peace and joy. It also invites us to incarnate that divine love, to step out of our comfort zones, reach out to the peripheries of human existence as an outward-focused Church, and to meet people with the love of Christ.
As we look forward to the New Year, we will continue as a parish to go further on the journey of Laudato Si’ Action Platform, learning to be Christ for each other, and sharing the love of God with those on the peripheries. https://laudatosiactionplatform.org/
Enamored with the story of God becoming one of us in Jesus Christ, we will join other Catholic churches across the world. Together as part of the Church’s synodal process, we will listen to the yearnings of the human heart and respond to the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth. G. K. Chesterton once said: “The greatest of all illusions is the illusion of familiarity.” May the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, enkindle in us a renewed sense of wonder and awe at the all-too-familiar story of God’s Incarnation in Jesus Christ and, hopefully, in you and me. Merry Christmas.
I have vivid memories of bitter-cold winters growing up as a child in Poland. I would trudge through fluffy snow, crunchy under my feet, heading to the church for Midnight Mass. It was about a half-hour journey on foot from the village where my grandparents lived to the church in the small town of Tykocin. The dark and cold winter nights were in sharp contrast with the bright lights and warmth of the church filled with people singing Christmas carols. The next day, I would continue to feast on the delicious, freshly made pierogis stuffed with sauteed sauerkraut and wild mushrooms.
You probably have your own rich memories and stories that convey some of the wonder and awe of the Christmas season. Their enchanting beauty warms one’s heart. The Scripture readings on Christmas Day tells us of the greatest love story ever told. It continues to bring us comfort, peace and inspiration. God, the creator and sustainer of trillion of galaxies, each containing hundreds of billions of stars, chose to dwell among us. As an outpouring of divine love, the eternal word of God became a vulnerable child, born in a small town of Bethlehem on the peripheries of the Roman empire, a subject to the evolutionary travails of history. The child Jesus was no stranger to the precarious nature of human existence, to its joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of people of every age. In the midst of the ordinary, everyday chores done by Mary and Joseph caring for the child Jesus, unbeknownst to them at the time, God was becoming one of us in Jesus Christ, and one with all of God’s creation.
The divine mystery of Incarnation that we celebrate at Christmas is not just about the events that took place nearly 2,000 years ago in Bethlehem. It is also about you and me and everyone else who has been moved by God’s love at the heart of the universe becoming tangible and personal. Our God, Creator and Sustainer of all there is, comes to the peripheries of human life and desires to dwell there. In 2013, three days before the Conclave elected Cardinal Bergoglio the Church’s next Pope, he said the following: “The Church is called out of herself and to go to the peripheries, not only geographically, but also the existential peripheries: the mystery of sin, of pain, of injustice, of ignorance and indifference to religion, of intellectual currents, and of all misery...” God’s love story that we celebrate in Christmas brings us peace and joy. It also invites us to incarnate that divine love, to step out of our comfort zones, reach out to the peripheries of human existence as an outward-focused Church, and to meet people with the love of Christ.
As we look forward to the New Year, we will continue as a parish to go further on the journey of Laudato Si’ Action Platform, learning to be Christ for each other, and sharing the love of God with those on the peripheries. https://laudatosiactionplatform.org/
Enamored with the story of God becoming one of us in Jesus Christ, we will join other Catholic churches across the world. Together as part of the Church’s synodal process, we will listen to the yearnings of the human heart and respond to the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth. G. K. Chesterton once said: “The greatest of all illusions is the illusion of familiarity.” May the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, enkindle in us a renewed sense of wonder and awe at the all-too-familiar story of God’s Incarnation in Jesus Christ and, hopefully, in you and me. Merry Christmas.